I’ll start with a bold statement: Dominic Masters is affable, highly articulate, business savvy and a committed smoker. I like him. He’s got a lung infection, maybe a punctured lung too and is about to go on tour. It’s not said like it’s cool and bad ass, rather in a way that makes me wants to give him tea and blankets. He still chats to me like an enthusiastic old mate, coughing and spluttering amongst emphatic stories and laughter. Of The Others new album he states ‘I’m really fucking happy with it, it was a long process, we haven’t released in 6 years, but yeah it’s really strong’.
The album is Songs For The Disillusioned, made entirely though self funding and self promotion online, and given away as a free download. ‘Well, we’ve got no management company, no radio platform. So we promote online, give it away as a download and if there’s a demand for a physical moment we’ll do a limited edition’. He reels all this off in a very matter of fact way, peppering his sentences with notes on sales figures and planning tours around annual leave. Not once does an element of bitterness enter his voice about past successes and slumps. He says ‘we were very fortunate to be a professional band between 2004-07 (when they were signed to Poptones), but it’s a different market now and it’s harder to get a wage from it. We balance the best we can; go to work to pay the bills, then get excited about tours and albums’.
It’s hard to believe chatting to Masters, that this guy surmounted so much media tension that there were websites created purely dedicated to slagging him off – he’s charming. But of course there were always those with knives out, waiting for him and the guys to slip up. But the band don’t seem to acknowledge obstacles, rather they simply pragmatically work around them. There’s no drama, just a bunch of guys determined to keep doing music.
At the height of their fame in the mid-2000’s it seems that public opinion was divided on The Others, they were either saviours of music or scourge of the earth. But there’s always been a buzz around the live shows. ‘Every concert, from the height of the success to the doldrums, when you’re getting punched in the stomach in the press, we always had an after party. We started out like a cult and it’s a tradition now. We go on tour and organise the troops, there’s no hierarchy, everyone’s involved’. The Others became notorious for their gigs and the interaction that went with them, that ‘all back to mine’ mentality. ‘When we started we had a lot of teenage following’, he explains, ‘now they’ve settled down a bit, the demographic’s older, but we still get the old punks’. We giggle at the idea that these days a The Others tour could mean a dirty weekend away from the kids for some grown up fans, to which he very lovingly tells me that over the years they’ve seen weddings, babies and lots of new friendships come out of the gigs – ‘they’ve all spread the message’.
The message has seemingly resonated in fans, and been a massive impetus to keep pushing forward with the band. Completely unsigned and unsupported, The Others were invited to perform at this years Glastonbury (the only unsigned band there) and pitted against The Vaccines. The tent had filled by 11am and they had the third highest crowd for their stage. ‘It was really touching and emotional, completed not expected’ Masters enthused.
Considering I’ve met musicians that haven’t ever hit the big time, but couldn’t organise a piss up in their proverbial brewery when it comes to even sorting their own equipment, these guys are really rather impressive in their dedication. Over the years they’ve learned how it works and got on with what they need to do, and they work bloody hard for the fruits of their labour. Masters states, ’I knew we had they songs, I know we had the message, I knew we stood for something, and we got their on our own, stepping back when we had a management company. But now we don’t it’s back to me, I do the management. Johnny does press, Jimmy’s logistics, Joe’s on equipment, Eddie production – we’re very pro-active!’.
I ask him if through doing all this by themselves the band feel like they’re working in opposition to the industry, to which he replies rather thoughtfully, ‘music works in cycles. Some of our favourite bands, The Fall, The Stooges, they often had divide in the press, got a reputation, couldn’t get signed. So they self-released. And that’s what we’re doing now, we keep fighting and we keep believing. Who knows, maybe a small independent will take a chance, if not I’ll keep self-releasing until I die’. Which based on the sound of his chest at that point could be pretty soon…hopefully not.
So I’m going to go swing by when they play Manchester next week, have a wee jagerbomb with Mr Masters and hand him a B&H Silver – his ‘weekend treat’ smokes apparently. I’m particularly looking forward to dancing my disco pants off to ‘Double Pernod’, a gritty sexy dirty romp. But before I hang up I ask him what he thought about an article Alan McGee wrote about him in The Guardian about the band’s underrated genius. And in a gravelly, punky, cockney drawl he tells me to ‘believe in McGee’. And oh, how I do.
Kate Tittley
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